


Predawn

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maes Hughes makes even the horrors of war significantly less soul-killing, damn him to hell.</p><p>[Compatible with either 'verse.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Predawn

**Author's Note:**

> For Eltea. <3

Maes promised and delivered extremely good sex, but there’s a very simple reason that Roy can’t say he’s good in bed: he is the worst person _in the universe_ to wake up next to.

“Good _morning_ , sunshine!” he sings.

Roy peels his face a few centimeters off of the pillow. “…time ’s it?”

“I don’t know,” Maes says. “Six or something. Let’s get breakfast!”

The pillow is still warm and molded to the contours of Roy’s face, making it several thousand times more welcoming than that incipient conversation.

“ _Come_ on,” Maes says, walking two fingers up Roy’s shoulder and then drumming them repeatedly. “Wakey wakey, Roy-muffin.”

“Baby-talk me again,” Roy says, “and I will burn off your eyebrows.” He can actually hear Maes beaming at him. “ _Permanently_.”

“ _Some_ body’s not a morning person,” Maes says, stroking Roy’s hair back from his face. “Come on, Roy, even you don’t like burning daylight.”

Roy manages something about improvised funeral pyres.

Maes heaves an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, you party-pooper. I’ll bring you some breakfast. Do you want porridge, porridge, or porridge?”

Roy hates this camp. And the military. And his life. And the world at large. And Maes Hughes. And goddamn _porridge_.

It’s probably a good thing that the pillow absorbs the beginnings of that rant.

Not that the worst bedmate on record would have heard it anyway. “I’ll take that as an ‘Oh, Maes, I could feast my eyes on your delicious body for days at a time, but since you’re being so generous, porridge would be lovely.’”

“Thanks,” Roy mutters.

Maes is actually quiet for a minute, so there’s a possibility that the apocalypse is nigh.

Then he rubs his hand gently at Roy’s back and leans down to kiss the knobby vertebra at the base of his neck.

“You’re welcome,” he says, and the cot creaks, and his footsteps saunter off.

Now Roy can’t go back to sleep. He is going to _obliterate_ that man.

Except… he’s been forced, now, to set the scales and weigh the facts—are Maes’s ungodly reveilles worth it for the nights that precede them?

Unfortunately, that’s a stupid question. They are.

It hardly comes as a surprise, given that Maes Hughes is the most flamboyantly self-assured human being that Roy has ever met, but he doesn’t care in the slightest about gender roles or power games. Roy doesn’t even remember who topped more, or who came first, or any of the petty details—he just remembers being warm, and spent, and profoundly satisfied. There’s something flitting at the corners of his mind about Maes miming blindness elaborately after Roy took his glasses, but that could well be imaginary.

The thing is… there’s something about Maes that’s just _decent_. He’s done things, here, that won’t ever be undone; they all have, but Maes transcends that, and Roy isn’t quite sure why. By some small, unsung miracle, Maes will emerge from this quagmire good, and whole, and clean.

Roy is so thoroughly coated in blood and dust and ash that he needs all the cleansing he can get.

So when Maes returns, bearing two steaming bowls, the trademark mile-wide grin, and the greeting, “Just the way you like it—with extra unidentifiable lumps!”, Roy sits up and wraps both arms around him so suddenly that only sheer luck prevents any questionable porridge from ending up in the bed.

“Whoa,” Maes says. “If I’d known you were the clingy type, I wouldn’t have… nah, I still totally would have slept with you. Roy, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Roy says, hugging him tighter for a second and then letting go.

“By which you mean ‘everything,’” Maes says.

Roy tries for a smile.

“Hey,” Maes says. He sets the porridge aside and takes both of Roy’s hands in his. “This is not going to break you, all right? You, Roy Mustang, are too… damn… _stubborn_ to give up now. Besides, who would I make fun of if you did?”

“I feel inspired already,” Roy says.

Maes’s grin is slightly lopsided now. “Look, in all seriousness…” He loops an arm around Roy’s shoulders and kisses his cheek. “I’ve got you. And I’ve got your back. And that’s not just because you look extremely good naked, although that factors in.”

Roy sighs. He wishes it didn’t help, but it does. Maes is such a bastard that way.

“Better?” Maes asks. He already knows the answer to that. “Good. Now eat your porridge.”

Roy gives him a baleful look, which is much more difficult from this close. “Go to hell, Hughes.”

“I’ve been there,” Maes says, setting a bowl in Roy’s lap. “But I’m leaving, and you’re coming back up with me.”

“This porridge is still inedible,” Roy says.

Maes ruffles his hair immensely despite his best efforts to squirm away.

“Eat up,” Maes says brightly. “You’re going to need your strength for what I have planned for tonight.”


End file.
